According to archaeologists, warfare was a common activity 5,000
years ago among the peoples of the area of the Middle East that
in modern times became Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the smaller
gulf states. Intermittent hostilities, often based on rivalries
between the Persians of the eastern coast of the gulf and the
Arabs of the western coast, have occurred ever since. Sargon,
Hammurabi, Nebuchadnezzar II, and Alexander the Great were among
the best known kings who led warring armies in the 2,500 years
before the birth of Christ. During the centuries of Greek and
Roman domination, the gulf region was of limited interest to the
major powers, but the area's importance as a strategic and trading
center rose with the emergence of Islam in the seventh century
A.D. The caliphate's military strength was concentrated at Hormuz.
Strategically sited at the mouth of the gulf, its authority extended
over ports and islands of the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf
.

The strategic importance of Hormuz, however, did not survive
the appearance of Western powers, initially the Portuguese who
came to the gulf in the late fifteenth century after Vasco da
Gama's discovery of the route to India via the Cape of Good Hope.
The Ottomans and the Iranians also tried to dominate the gulf
but faced opposition from local tribes in Bahrain and Muscat,
reluctant to cede authority over their territories, which by then
were the most important areas on the coast. Increasing British
involvement in India beginning in the late eighteenth century
quickened British interest in the gulf region as a means of protecting
the sea routes to India. The principal challenge to Britain arose
from the Qawasim tribal confederation originating in the area
of the present-day United Arab Emirates (UAE). The Qawasim, who
amassed a fleet of about 900 vessels, demanded tribute for the
passage of merchant vessels and were regarded as pirates by the
Europeans. Between 1809 and 1820, British sea power gradually
brought about the destruction of the Qawasim fleet. This in turn
led to the signing of agreements with Britain by the Qawasim and
other shaykhs (see Treaties with the British , ch. 1). The amirates
promised to have no direct dealings with other foreign states
and to abstain from piracy. Britain in turn assumed responsibility
for the foreign relations of the amirates and promised to protect
them from all aggression by sea and to lend its support against
any land attacks. Before the end of the century, Britain extended
protection to Bahrain and Kuwait; Qatar entered the system after
it repudiated Ottoman sovereignty in 1916.

Although Muscat was traditionally a center of the slave trade,
its sultan agreed to abandon this activity in return for British
help in building a navy. In the early nineteenth century, the
sultan's efficient fleet of sloops, corvettes, and frigates enabled
him to support a maritime empire extending from East Africa to
the coast of present-day Pakistan. With the eventual decline of
this empire, owing in part to its division into two states--Zanzibar
and Oman--Britain's influence grew, and it signed a treaty in
1891 similar to those with the gulf amirates.

The strategic importance of the Persian Gulf became increasingly
apparent as the oil industry developed in the twentieth century.
Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Iran all claimed some of the territory
of the gulf states during the years between World War I and World
War II, but Britain's firm resistance to these claims enabled
the amirates to maintain their territorial integrity without resort
to arms. Except for a small force of the British Indian Navy to
ensure observance of the treaty conditions and maintain maritime
peace in the gulf, Britain abstained from direct military involvement.
As the wealth of the gulf's oil resources became clear, the size
of the British military establishment expanded. By the end of
the 1960s, Britain had about 9,000 men in Oman, Sharjah (an amirate
of the UAE), and Bahrain, where British military headquarters
was located. The Trucial Oman Scouts, a mobile force of mixed
nationality that Britain supported and British officers commanded,
became a symbol of public order in the UAE until Britain's withdrawal
from the Persian Gulf in 1971.

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